Julius

This is Julius, he contacted me just because he wanted his photo taken. Who says you need any other reason, right? He liked the shots I had taken of his sister back in February so we went out and took a whole bunch of photos right up until it was dark and they started towing drunk party goers cars!

This shot here was supposed to have a different background but for some reason on this shoot we were really badly hassled by annoying park officials and a really annoying community patrol officer who I had serious difficulty taking seriously seeing as he was a fully grown man riding a full size bright yellow tricycle. Way to be manly there big guy! Guess what had just freewheeled on by as we took this shot….

We left the man child to his bike and stopped at a loading dock in an area of San Francisco known as The Dogpatch and took a series of shots using a single shoot through umbrella against a loading dock door. I remembered seeing this done at the OneLight Workshop in October but hadn’t used the technique (see this on Strobist). I kinda like it!

Next up we drove to a new location about 3 blocks from the loading dock. As we are unloading the car the cops appear! Thankfully a case of mistaken identity, that would have been just the final straw. The first shot here is simply completely killed ambient. It’s really simple to do on location with one light (except, ahem…this is a two light shot) and it’s fast to do.

This shot is taken using the exact same setup as the shot above, all I did was move position….as in, lay in the mud.

These last two images were the main reason we chose to shoot in this particular area of the city. I don’t have access to a fancy studio or elaborate sets but I am a firm believer in finding the best possible locations to shoot at. It’s not always easy, it’s often not even possible and it can become a tiring and frustrating task to find a location you like the look of only to discover you can’t gain access or it’s been torn down etc. When I saw this particular location in a shot on flickr I HAD to use it. It took weeks to find out where the location is but I’m happy we found it.

At night this is a very desolate area and I told Julius I had a particular narrative in mind for these shots; “You’ve been out at the club down the street and your girlfriend left. Forever.” He pulled off the look I wanted!

Here’s another one.

That’s it for this week, hopefully I’ll get another post up next week. Thanks to Julius for braving the cold for so long and to Leo for coming along and assisting which was a great help!